September was our biggest turnout yet. We had 28 shooters, many were our regular competitors, but we also had some first timers. One thing that it showed us, is that 28 is simply too many. I had announce previously that we were limiting the number of competitors to 25. I had secretly intended to be lenient in September, because I knew the temps were going to be moderate all day and I wanted to find out how long the match would run with the new setup and however many showed up. It ran until almost 1:30pm. Because I know many of our competitors are family men and women, and have family activities (and chores) they need to get to on Saturday afternoon, I am trying to plan the matches to end as close to 12:00 as possible. Next year, I will be much less flexible, so make sure you preregister.

In September, we ran a total of four stages. This seems to be the most that can be set up at one time on the new bay. The stages were designed to provide a variety of target types and challenges with a round count of about 110 total as a minimum. The 3^rd Stage proved to be especially challenging for some. In a last minute addition, Gary Perkins brought a Texas Star on Friday while we were doing the setup. I was looking for a way to bump the round count and the Star slotted in nicely! Well, not for everyone. If you’ve never shot a Texas Star, once you hit the first plate, it falls off and unbalances the star. Then it starts to turn. That means the next four are moving targets! While I saw 1 or 2 take out all 5 stars with just 5 shots, most were not that lucky. I saw more than a few mag changes while shooters were trying to complete the star. I’m not promising it will make an appearance every month, but we will see it again.

Going forward into 2025, you can look forward to Multi-stage setups. Unless I find the perfect formula that gives us a solid round count with a good finishing time, I will continue to mix them up. You can expect to see 3 – 5 stages of varying target counts. Paper plates provide a lot of targets in a small area, so I will be using them. Steel will be there, because everyone loves the steel, but they do take up a lot of room and we do need to consider splatter and possible ricochets. We will be using the IDPA style scoring. We used the IDPA scoring in August and the USPSA scoring in September. I prefer the IDPA scoring. Simply Time + Raw Score + Penalties (if any). USPSA seems to give the best shooter the High Score and everyone else’s score is derived from that. We will also continue to classify the PCC as just a firearm choice, instead of running a separate PCC Only stage.

Next year, we will be running our matches on the 3^rd Saturday of the month, with the first match on April 19, 2025. Safety Briefing at 8:00 and first round down range at 8:30. Hope to see you there. Don’t forget to preregister. Registration opens the Sunday before the match. Once registration is full, I will email any late shooters that they are too late. I don’t expect every month to be full and walk-ons will be accepted if we haven’t hit 25. But that is “if”.